A CITY OF FILTH

Ghana is engulfed in filth and practically submerged into an array of stench.  The garbage is so overwhelming; everywhere you turn to is filled with garbage and trash. Let’s be a little precise. Take for instant the capital city of Ghana, Accra. Accra stinks so badly that the stench which emanates from it can obviously guarantee a place in the Guinness World Book of Records.

Our drainage system is a laughable failure. All the gutters are choked to the brim. This just reminds me of Psalm 23, “My cup runneth over”. The only difference is that in this case, “our gutters runneth over “.

The most captivating irony of this appalling deterioration of the capital city is the erroneous and implausible impression of a millennium city which is a spurious attempt to obfuscate the facts; fact being that we’ve gradually turned Accra into a refuse dump. How could a person, in his wildest imagination consider this filthy and stinky Accra as a millennium city? That’s quite a sarcastic joke.

It is an ineluctable fact that walking the streets of Makola is a "real ordeal". It’s very challenging trekking down those streets and coping with such a piercing stench. What is most disheartening is that we see all these things as an absolute normality. We walk along unconcerned, perhaps with utmost disgust and spit out just to show how unpleasant the stench is. I wonder if there’s any town or village in Ghana which smells as bad as Accra.

Instead of pragmatically dealing with these kinds of “trash”, our leaders decide to rather churn out more verbal trashes to add to the trash we already have in the streets. Our political stewards are so vindictive and expedient in their decisions such that they resort to all kinds of diabolic means to discredit their opponents at the expense of tackling the very essential issues for which they came to power.

Rather than initiating policies and programs to steadily deal with the ridiculous rubbish which have engulfed the city, all they do is to propagate lies, propaganda, mischievous falsehoods about political opponents and spew all sorts of malicious rebuttals.

Commuting along the  principal streets of Accra is stunningly monotonous. The green median which were supposed to be green are all dirty brown interspersed with weeds and all sorts of paths in between. The controversial Presidential Palace is not an exception of this filth. Everywhere you go (MTN) is filth, filth, and filth.  

Maybe it would at this point be convenient for me to say that the “lavender” hill is a microcosm of Accra. Indeed Accra stinks, no two ways about that. Everywhere smells so terrible. I look forward to the day where Metro TV will stop telecasting the overwhelming rubbish and trash in our minds, sorry in our streets.

I’ve read and heard from quite a reliable source that when the NDC Government assumed power and appointed Alfred beard, sorry Vendepuije as Mayor, he decided to zone Accra and terminated the contract of zoom lion, which monopolized the collection of rubbish and trash because of the unreasonable thought and obnoxious perception that it was affiliated to the NPP.

So far this erroneous impression proved useless and hopeless. Fact being that in spite of the initial prevalence of garbage, rubbish and trash, it wasn’t as overwhelming as it is now. Accra indeed has become an epitome of “borla”, pure and unadulterated garbage.

This is the kind of inimical impediment that befalls us when we decide to dabble in political expediency and relegate efficiency, just to satisfy the parochial interest of a few “greedy bastards”.

To be fair to the government of the day, I must state that it isn’t their fault in entirety that has led us to this sullen state. All the previous governments have failed woefully in dealing with the filth in Accra, not to talk of the whole Ghana. So I wouldn’t single out any government, since they all proved to be useless and ineffective as far as the governance of this country and address of pertinent issues is concerned.

It’s perhaps more important to note that our culture of undermining the laws and doing things as we’re predisposed to do haven’t been of any help. It’s said that the only practical law in Ghana is the “male and female toilet” law.

We throw rubbish around as if it’s no one’s business. If there should be any group of people who “shit”  in rubber, tie the mouth and throw it just anywhere with impunity then u probably should be asking the residents of Accra their motive behind this uncultured behavior. We don't even spare the sea and rivers this repugnant attitude of dumping refuse and waste imprudently

This is a Country where people openly defecate into drains; pour rubbish into gutters, impeding the free flow of water. These illicit behaviors contribute significantly to the perennial floods in Accra. When this happens, we tend to blame the politicians and even God. When would we learn to take responsibility for our actions?

The city authorities have done well by providing free bins for homes and along the streets but that’s not good enough. In fact it’s not good at all. Sometimes, I have to carry my trash in my bag and dispose of it when I reach the house, just because there are no bins around.

We are quick to lash out at indecent dressing and sexual lasciviousness, because we consider it as filthy and immoral. We’re however unable to deal with the filth in our surroundings. Sometimes I think we Ghanaians talk too much without acting. We criticize everything; meanwhile, we can’t deal with the basic problems that confront us or even prevent them from happening anyway. Dwelling in such a deficient ideology, we expect the politicians to solve the problems for us.

The ineluctable fact is if we don’t litter our environment, we wouldn’t be facing these problems that have become so phenomenal. It is for this irresponsible reason that we should have intimidating diseases like cholera, bilharzias, ring worm, malaria and other jaw-breaking diseases, which could have been easily preempted if we had adhered to simple personal hygiene and maintained a clean environment.